New York beats Devil Rays 7-4 after flight delay caused by Frances

Published 5:30 am, Tuesday, September 7, 2004

On another unusual day in the Bronx, an afternoon doubleheader became a single night game because Hurricane Frances caused the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to arrive three hours after the scheduled start.

Rodriguez then hit a three-run double, his first hit with the bases loaded in more than a year, and El Duque won his seventh straight decision to lead the Yankees over the Devil Rays 7-4 on Monday night, Tampa Bay's season-high eighth straight loss.

Fouled up by the hurricane, which caused consecutive postponements against Detroit on Saturday and Sunday at Tropicana Field, the Devil Rays' charter didn't even take off from Florida until five minutes before the doubleheader was scheduled to start at 3 p.m.

Major league baseball then switched it to a single night game at 7 p.m., just one hour after the Devil Rays arrived at the ballpark.

The Yankees, with "1G" still up on the scoreboard to record the first-game score, asked the commissioner's office to award them a forfeit, a request commissioner Bud Selig made clear he would reject.

Fans started entering the ballpark at 11 a.m. and were given free hot dogs and soda during the eight-hour wait. The Devil Rays were without outfielder Aubrey Huff, who could not get from his low-lying area home to Tropicana Field.

Jorge Cantu's first major league homer had put the Devil Rays ahead 1-0 in the second against Hernandez (7-0), who has become the Yankees' ace.

After Gary Sheffield's third-inning RBI grounder and Miguel Cairo's fourth-inning sacrifice fly put New York ahead 2-1 against Doug Waechter (3-7), Rodriguez came up later in the fourth and grounded a double under the glove of a diving B.J. Upton.

Hernandez allowed two runs and four hits in seven innings before he was ejected by plate umpire Adam Dowdy for arguing balls and strikes.